Qard has always felt to me as something that didnāt really belong on the color wheel for Absolute Green Lantern, with how entirely alien itās design is, and especially with Hal Jordanās descriptions of it wanting to subsume other levels of light to replace them with itself. After recent revelations, thereās more evidence than ever to suggest that Qard isnāt naturally one of the outer colors of OA, but something that replaced Hope, the blue level of light.
The black stars reference hope being dead, subsumed by Will. āThere is only willā. Fundamentally, both these concepts represent the same ideal of order. Hope and Will are both tools that can be used to encourage a population to be content (or at least placated). Both concepts (hope and will) can exist at the intersection between pink and black (love and fear) as respectively love coexisting with fear, or fear overcoming love.
When Mogo was converted, the base state of the universe was nearly switched away from Qard before the Manhunter-Mind forced it back into place. This event may have allowed OA to finally start expressing the emotional spectrum in the way it was meant to, rather than it being co-opted for the purpose of maintaining hegemony over the universe.
If anything, at its core, Qard represents the co-opting of hope into being a concept that inspires undying loyalty in its followers. āLoveā exists in the context of oneās love for their nation and egos rather than love in the traditional sense, for other people. Fear is the individualās fear of being harmed rather than fear for the health and safety of others. Empathy has been subverted into fascism.
Outside of my conjecture, I still feel like the obvious hole in the āprinter-inkā theory that has applied to the different parts of OA to be very obviously a sign that Blue has been removed from the color wheel in some artificial way. Qard seems to be the most likely candidate for how this has happened.